Meeting Schedule Assistant

Regular Report

The Report Editor is displayed when you select
the Create Report or Open Report
on the main application File menu. If you open a
saved report, then the grid will automatically display all the
assignments you previously made, and the filename will get
displayed in the top left-hand corner of the dialogue. You can
maximise the dialogue if you prefer to have a larger viewing area.
This setting gets saved.

As you select or click a row in the schedule, the Not
Available list will update to remind you which brothers
can't be assigned.

There are several ways that you can populate
the schedule. You are encouraged to read this whole topic to
clearly understand what features you have available to you. You can
directly jump down to any part of the help topic by clicking on the
control that interests you on the screenshot above.

Date
Firstly, you will see a pre-filled in set of dates for your chosen
date range. These dates are determined from the program options. So under normal circumstances you
won't need to alter these dates. However there are some valid
occasions when you might want to change a date (maybe you have the
circuit overseer and thus the meeting has swapped
to another day). So if you need to alter a date, just double click
it.

When you double click the date, it looks like
the snapshot shown here. You can then click on each part of the
date and use the small up/down arrows to alter the value (or you
can manually type the new value). The date is displayed using your
PC regional settings or can be customized.

Reminder
Next, you will notice that as you click on each row, you will see a
reminder telling you which meeting this date is
for. Eg:

Fill Manually
To fill in an assignment manually, click the small dropdown allow
to display a list of names and simply select one.
Likewise you can change a name by doing the same thing. The names
that are listed depend on three factors. Firstly, they are based on
the names you added using the Publishers Database. Secondly, it
depends what meeting day it is, as only those
available for the chosen meeting will be displayed. Lastly, a
brother might have been specifically excluded from
the meeting.

You can also double-click the cell to go into
edit mode and you can type in whatever text you
like. This might be useful if you want to add a random brothers
name (not on the dropdown list) or if you want to clear the cell
contents. Click another cell, or press the Enter key to leave the
edit mode. Press the Escape key to abort any
changes made to the cell.

Auto Assign
If you wish the Meeting Schedule Assistant program to
select names for the various assignments, use the Auto
Assign feature.

Select this menu item to perform the automatic
assignment operation. The program will populate the cells
using a process with these rules:

Avoid assigning a brother two weeks in a row.

Avoid assigning a brother for two duties at the same meeting
occasion.

Avoid assigning an excluded name or entire column (if set)

Due to the complexity of this process however, there may
occasionally result a Conflict of Assignment. When this
option is set (see help notes below) the program will inform you
when this has occurred and will show you on the schedule by
highlighting the specific areas. A Conflict of Assignment
means that the program has been unable to apply the above listed
rules satisfactorily for every assignment. This then requires the
user to manually adjust the content of the cells. You might wish to
use the swap feature to make the needed
corrections. After each correction, the program will continue to
check for assignment conflicts.

Note:Auto Assign uses strict
processing protocol when engaged, however it is vital that each
allocated assignment is checked by the user.

Single Column Use this feature to
populate your schedule on a column by column basis. It is worthy of
your investigation and you might find that it yields a better
allocation of personnel if used correctly. Click here for more details.

Settings Select this menu item to display
the Auto Assign Settings
dialogue. This allows you to customize how the Auto-Assign feature
will work.

Clear
Assignments
Select this menu item to clear the cells on the grid. You can clear
all the cell or specific columns.

Exclusions Select this menu item to
display the Exclude Brothers
dialogue. This allows you to remove brothers from specific meetings
on the schedule. You would need to do this before running the Auto
Assign process.

Show
Conflicts
Select this menu item to highlight all conflicts of assignment.
They will be coloured in cyan (this colour can't be changed at the
moment). Any existing highlights get removed (for example, if you
had previously highlighted a brothers assignment duties). The
program will ensure the first conflict found (if any) is visible to
the user since it might actually be off screen.

SaveSave As
File...
Once you have populated your schedule with assignments you can save
it. Select this menu item to do this. It will display a dialogue
for you to choose a name and location for the saved report. Saved
reports use the .SRR file type. These files store all of the
settings that are in place when the schedule was created. They can
also be opened up again later on and modified etc..

Once you have saved a schedule, it's filename is displayed in
the top left-hand corner of the dialogue.

Note:Save As File will always
show a file dialogue whereas Save will only show
one when saving a brand new schedule for the very first time.

Print
The schedule can be printed out to a printer of your choosing by
selecting the Print menu item. This feature is disabled if you are
in Duty Slip mode. Also note that this is a
very basic print out as it does not utilize the benefits of the
HTML settings. If at all possible, you are encouraged to use the
Print Preview facility to create more professional schedules.

Export
The schedule can also be exported into HTML and Comma Separated
Values (CSV) formats. A HTML file can be opened directly in
Microsoft Word for editing. This is very useful if you want to add
some additional details like notes. The file dialogue displayed has
a Settings button where you
can alter how the report will look in the HTML file. The settings
dialogue allows you to print the HTML schedule too. Note that these
settings also affect how Print Preview operates
and it can also be displayed directly by selecting Export
Settings from the menu.

CSV format is a simple text output. Each text
value is wrapped in quotes and delimited with a comma. Such a file
can be opened using Microsoft Excel or used with
Microsoft Word during mail merge. The Settings
button (on the file dialogue) becomes disabled when you select this
export file format.

Note that export to CSV is not available when in Duty Slip mode and the setting dialogue will be
different when in this mode (see below).

Select a brother
Use this dropdown list to select a brother to
highlight all his assignments. This is very useful if you want to
print or export the report for a brother in particular, since he
will clearly see his assignments.

Someone might supply you with
their own SRR file and the names they used may not match those that
you have held in Meeting Schedule Assistant.
Alternatively, you may have assigned one or two individuals
manually on the schedule (for whatever reason). In these situations
you may like to use the Refresh feature. It will
examine the active schedule and update the list to include all of
the assigned names. Please use this feature with caution since the
operation can't be undone! You can repeat the process at anytime,
but you can't undo it. Having said that, the list will revert back
to the default set of names the next time the editor is
started.

Select
<NONE> to remove any highlighting from the
schedule. Highlighted assignments are shown in
cyan. Existing highlighted cells get removed (for
example, conflicts of assignment).

All
(Separate Pages)
This affects how reports are printed and exported. You end up
getting a report for each brother with his assignments highlighted.
Note that for HTML, it will seem that the tables are one under the
other, but when you print, you will actually get a page break in
between each one.

Selected
(Separate Pages)
Choosing this setting works in exactly the same way, except that
you can select which brothers you would like to include when
printing or exporting. When this option is selected, the Select
Brothers button becomes enabled. Press this button to alter the
selected brothers. This selection is saved along with the rest of
the programs settings.

Please be aware that when you use either of these advanced modes
for printing and exporting schedules that only the brothers who
actually have assignments will be included. There is no point
printing or exporting a schedule for a brother who has no
assignments.

Notice
Board
This option is only enabled when using one of the advanced modes.
Set this option if you want to include a schedule with no
highlighting for the notice board.

Duty
Slip
This option is available when the highlight has been set to
All (Separate Pages) or Selected (Separate
Pages). This option changes the way the reports are
created. A small slip is created for each brother as opposed to a
full schedule. Note that you can't directly print these duty slips.
You must press Print Preview instead.
Also, you can personalise how these slips look by pressing the
Export Settings button.

Exit
Press this button to close down the report editor
and return to the main dialogue. If you made changes to the
schedule and did not save it, then a popup dialogue will ask for
confirmation before the dialogue is closed.

Insert
Meeting
Sometimes you might need to add a new meeting into the schedule.
For example, if you have the circuit overseer visit it will most
likely mean that you will have an extra meeting at the Kingdom
Hall. In order to allow for this flexibility, you can
right-click anywhere in the report grid to see
this popup menu. Clicking Insert Meeting will then
show this small dialogue.

Use the date control to set the date of the
meeting and click OK. It will be inserted in the right
place in the schedule and get selected automatically for you to
populate the meeting assignments.

Recurrence Set this option if you want to
repeat this data every week on the current
schedule.

Assignments to exclude Tick any
assignments that you would like excluded for the
dates added to the schedule. When an assignment is excluded, it
means the editor will not present you with a dropdown list.

Here is a scenario where you might use these extra features:
Suppose you want to insert all the Saturday dates into the current
schedule. Then simply choose the first Saturday date and then use
the Recurrence setting. However, since this is a Saturday, only one
of the assignments is valid. In this scenario, Weekend Ministry is
a custom assignment and is the only valid assignment for a
Saturday. So tick all but this assignment to exclude them from each
row.

It is important to understand that the brothers listed for these
meetings are the brothers available for the Midweek
Meeting. I hope this is OK.

Delete Meeting
Press this button to delete any meeting from the grid. You can
delete special events or meetings that you had inserted as well.
Since the change is permanent you are asked to confirm your
actions.

Special Events
There are occasions when you might want to change the way the
report looks and indicate a special event. Such events could
include the Special Assembly Day, District Convention or Circuit
Assembly. In order to do this, you must right-click the row in the
schedule for which you want to assign this event. Then select the
Set Special Event menu item to display a small
popup dialogue.

Using this dialogue you can choose one of
the pre-defined events or type one of your own. When a row is
converted into a special event, the cells get merged together so it
all looks nice and tidy (see below). You can change the special
event text again by double-clicking the cell.

Of course, you can undo this change to the report by
right-clicking again and selecting Remove Special
Event, in which case it reverts back to the individual
cells with dropdown lists. All rows specified as events will be
ignored during the automatic assignment process, so it makes sense
to define these before you do automatic assigning. These events are
also saved when you save the report.

If you would like further options as to how these events are
displayed in the reports, then consider exporting the report to
HTML by the Export button. By using the export settings, you can alter
the font that is used for the events.

You can use the Events
Manager to automatically show special events on all new
reports. However, when you set a special event from within the
report itself, it will get added to the special events list. Also,
there are times when you might want this event excluded from a
service meeting schedule, in which case you should set the Exclude
from Service Meeting schedule option.

Swap Brothers
Sometimes you might want to swap two brothers
assignments. For example, Auto Assign might always end up
place the same brothers in the same columns. This is a quick way to
swap the two brothers. Right-click anywhere on the schedule for
this popup menu to display.

Before you can swap two brothers, you must select them. This is
done by clicking the left mouse button whilst holding down
the CTRL key (lower left of keyboard). A selected brother
will be highlighted. To deselect a brother, simply CTRL + left
mouse click again.

Note that you
can only select two brothers, although they do not have to be side
by side. Once you have selected the two brothers, the Swap
Brothers menu item will be available.

The two brothers must be available on the relevant meeting days
for the swap to be successful. If one or the other can be swapped,
the operation will fail and you will be informed.

Certain actions, like Show Conflicts will
automatically deselect any highlighted cells.

Exclude assignment from many
dates
Occasionally there are times when you want an extra assignment
(column) added but you do not want it to be populated each
week/meeting (row). This feature selected from the right click menu
Exclude assignment from many dates caters for this
matter by excluding the assignment from as few or as many
weeks/meetings as necessary.

To illustrate: lets say you have a C.O visit followed by a host
visit for an assembly and a memorial in the same period covered by
the report schedule; as a consequence you want to add a feature
assignment Other to cater for an additional translator at
the meeting; or an extra attendant; or any other role. You create
the assignment in the options dialogue and have it
available for all meetings > assign names to the
assignment in the publishers database > then when you
create a report, right click and using the standard Ctrl+
click method, exclude the assignment from weeks you do not
need it before you populate the remainder of the grid.

Exclude assignment from this
date
Occasionally an assignment might not be required on the schedule
and you wish for it to remain blank while not upsetting the
sequence order of brothers selected for other cells. For example:
no reader for the Watchtower is required during a Circuit Visit; no
roving microphone handlers are required during the Memorial
celebration.

When you (right click) exclude an assignment for a given
date, you will be presented with a popup message box to
confirm your actions. When Yes is applied, the
specific cell on the schedule will change into an empty or blank
one and become read-only; this means that when you
engage the Auto Assign feature, it will bypass populating this cell
with a name.

You can, should you change your mind, re-instate the
dropdown list nature of an excluded cell.

Include assignment for this date To
revert any given blank or
read-only cell back into a �dropdown list� type of
cell again, select Include from the (right click)
menu list. This action can only be performed for cells where you
had previously selected Exclude assignment from this
date.

Note: You cannot modify or adjust any cells that have become
excluded via the program Options dialogue.

Schedule Notes There are
occasions when you want to include a note at the bottom of a
schedule. The reasons could be varied. For example, you might use
such a note to remind brothers of their particular
responsibilities. Select Insert Notes to add the default notes to
the bottom of the schedule.

Select Edit Notes modify the current notes.
This displays the dialogue shown to the left. The set of notes can
be as long as you like because they will word wrap on the schedule.
Double-clicking the existing notes will also
display this dialogue.

If you want to keep the changes you have made permanent, so that if
will be used the next time a schedule is created, then click
Set Default.

When exporting the schedule to HTML you can use the export settings
to customise the basic font characteristics for the notes.

Tip! You can consider including some HTML
syntax in the notes. For example, the text
<b><u>some text</u></b> will cause the text
to show bold and
underlined. So this is a very powerful way to make certain
parts of the notes stand out.

Edit Headings
Do you need to make a change to the report title or the column
headings? Then use this popup menu item. All the current headings
are presented to you in a dialogue and you can alter them
accordingly. The changes you make to the headings are applied to
the current schedule only. Click here for important
information about the report title.